


Ashes to Ashes

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Major character death - Freeform, UA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 21:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7731310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Skye’s gonna be so sad. She’s going to be alone. We can’t leave her alone, Fitz.”</p><p>UA during S2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ashes to Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from a year ago, when I was prompted how I thought FS might die.

Alarms blared overhead, almost lost in the roar of flames and the sound of their own breathing. Putting one shaking hand in front of another, they continued to crawl under the smoke. Most of the doors back to the main complex were locked shut to contain the flames, but the smoke pouring through the ventilation was more than enough. Sweat and dust and smoke pricked their eyes, drawing out tears. In layers upon layers of it, they couldn’t see.

“It’s no use.” Simmons slumped against the wall, pulled the cloth off her mouth and pulled her knees up. “We’re wasting breath. We need to think.”

Fitz wanted to resist, but his elbows were trembling violently and his burnt hands protested every scraping forward movement. He collapsed beside her and pulled his own handkerchief down. His lungs heaved, eager for the opportunity for more oxygen, and fighting fruitlessly for it.

“If we go down-“ Simmons broke to cough – “Down. We can wait.”

“But if they’re not coming, we can’t get out,” Fitz swallowed hard. It didn’t wet his throat nearly as much as he would have liked - he was pretty sure his internal organs were turning to stone. Breathing was harder, shallower, with every attempt, and even his heart seemed to be finding it harder to beat. Beside him, Simmons’ breath wheezed loudly. It almost sounded like she was crying. Maybe she was.

“How long’ve we been in here?” he asked.

Simmons shook her head. “An hour, maybe? I lost count. With all the chemical – chemical crap around here, I don’t think it’d make much of a difference. If we don’t get out of here, Fitz –“

Another bout of coughing cut her off. It lasted longer than it should have. It shook her whole body, made her want to pull out her own trachea. When it subsided, she was trembling, and her mouth tasted like metal and blood. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, but at the sting of her touch, more tears fell.

“I can’t breathe,” she whispered.

Fitz wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to him as if he could share with her, by some kind of osmosis, the timid air that crept in and out of his throat. He’d grown used to the black spots dancing around his vision, and the feeling of breathing via stone sponge. But the longer he sat here with her, the deeper he seemed to sink. The blackness grew bigger. Breathing grew exhausting. With her soft weight against him, all he wanted was sleep.

“Could we go – could we go down?” Simmons wheezed. “Where’s the nearest..?”

“Ditched the map ages ago.” Fitz shook his head. “Can’t track where we are since we blew up the modem. ‘Sides. We don’t have anything to break open the doors, ‘n I ‘aven’ seen a window this ‘ole….”

His words slurred and died. Everything was breathing. Breathing and Simmons.

“Fitz, no,” she squeaked, nudging him. “Come on, stay.”

“’M not goin’ anywhere.” He adjusted his arm around her.

“I think I-“ She trembled violently, but she didn’t cough. She made a few timid snorts, and pressed herself against him, seeking the safety that she hoped he could provide. She breathed deep – as deep as she could, anyway. Dust and poison be damned. She had to speak. But what to say? Words tumbled through her mind, but none spilled out. At least, she couldn’t hear any. She couldn’t even feel herself breathing anymore. The world was strange and soft. The smoke danced before her eyes. It reminded her all of a sudden, of London’s skies. Of her first day in Boston. Of Fitz’ hair, and his favourite cardigan. Of hugs in a cold hangar, when her heart felt sharp and empty and she only had those arms to hold her up.

“Skye’s gonna be so sad,” she mumbled. “She’s gonna be alone. We can’t leave her alone, Fitz.”

“She’ll understand,” Fitz assured her. “She knows we love her.”

“She has to know.”

“She does, Jemma. She does. Just breathe – please – don’t waste- “

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her not to speak. These might be the last things she’d ever say. But at the same time, he couldn’t bear to hear the distress in her voice, to think of her still believing – even now, on her deathbed – that she could have done more to save them. Gently, he stroked her hair. It was a simple movement, but for all he knew, it was all he could manage at this point.

“Remember,” he said, “remember down in the pod? Remember what you said? We shouldn’t be afraid of dying. Dying is just becoming part of something else.”

“The first law of thermodynamics.” She smiled, and the distress melted from her voice.

“No energy is created, and none is destroyed,” Fitz continued. “Every bit of energy inside us, every particle, will go on to be a part of something else. And every part of us now was once a part of some other thing - a moon, a storm cloud, a mammoth.”

“- a monkey.”

“A monkey,” he repeated.

She rolled over, and curled up against him. Her body had given up shaking, even coughing, even attempting to cough. It almost sounded like she was breathing easier. He knew what it meant. He shouldn’t have been smiling. But he had to.

“Thousands and thousands of other beautiful things…”

He could hear his voice starting to shake, and crack, and give out. He pressed his lips together. He wanted to plead with her, _don’t leave me here alone._ Instead he said –

“I love you.”

“You know,” she said, in a voice so quiet he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t imagining it, “I really think I could have fallen in love with you too.”

He didn’t respond. The flames, the alarms, that had been creeping out of his hearing for so long, were all but silenced in the wake of those words. He listened hard, in case he had imagined – or in case he hadn’t, and she was going to say something else. But she wasn’t even breathing any more.

He kissed the top of her head, and hoped that she could feel it.


	2. We All Fall Down

The green light flickered back to life. Coulson hammered the counter with his fist, adjusting the comms unit in front of him and praying with everything he had. He could feel sparks coming off May and Skye behind him, anxious for news.

“Fitzsimmons, come in,” Coulson insisted. “Come in.”

He remembered the last time this had happened. How Simmons' heavy shoulders and weary smile had greeted them at the Playground. Never again, he’d sworn, fruitless as he'd always know it would be.

“Fitz. Come in. Come in, Fitz.” His heart was in his throat. He couldn’t say any other words. He couldn’t even hope that Simmons…her unit had gone dark and refused to resurface. But Fitz would be with her, right?

Fighting to keep his voice under control, he pressed the button once again. Before he could speak, though, the other end of the line came crackling to life.

 _“….Yeah….”_ Fitz’ voice was like paper, like snow in the sound of roaring flames, but it nearly melted all Coulson’s bones at once. He stumbled for the seat behind him.

“Where are you?”

 _“’m in the north…the north east corridor, I think.”_ Fitz paused to cough, and it turned into a whine. God, he must hardly be able to breathe. Coulson signalled May and Skye, who disappeared immediately to recover them.

“Is Simmons with you?”

Silence on the other end of the line. But he could hear the flames, so Fitz was pressing the button down.

 _“Jemma-?“_  His voice cracked, as if the word alone was enough to break his heart. _“Jemma, she, ah…she’s with me. She’s…”_

“Fitz.” His tongue felt like lead. “What’s her status.” Steady. Strong. In a situation like this, they couldn’t afford to mistake dramatics, or fear, or lack of breath, for the worst. If Simmons had left, or fallen unconscious, that would be different to if she was -

 _“She’s gone.”_ His voice was a wounded puppy, squeaky and small and lonely. _“She’s dead, Coulson, she’s…”_

“Breathe. Breathe, Fitz. It’s going to be okay. May’s coming, it’s- it’s- You’re going to get out.”

Coulson pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. He swallowed his tears, and they tasted like glass.

“Stay with me, Fitz. You hear me?”

Fitz didn’t answer.

Coulson flicked the switch to talk to May.

“We’ve got a situation,” he said. “Tell Skye to stay outside.”

_“What’s wrong?”_

–

May stopped short, so suddenly that Skye almost ran into her. Her whole frame went tense, not like a fighter, but like somebody who’d just been slapped in the face. Skye’s heart dropped.

“What?” she asked, pressing forward. “What’s wrong? What’s he saying?”

The ground was starting to shake beneath her feet. May grabbed her shoulders, and fixed her with eyes that shone with tears.

“Stay,” May insisted, but Skye couldn’t move anyway. In that moment, she was struck still. The world around her didn’t move, until May blinked, and turned and ran for the burning building. It wasn’t until Coulson ran past to join May, that Skye started breathing again. She crossed her arms and tried to breathe through it, but she could hear the earth, the trees, the cars roaring at her. She could feel the crackling flames against her fingertips, feel the vibrations of the building as it groaned and shuddered, trying its hardest to stay standing.

Taking a deep breath, Skye drew the shaking from it. She felt it in her bones, in the soles of her feet. She heard the van nearly shaken off its axel behind her. Pavement splitting. Trees collapsing into splinters. She just had to keep that building up.

She tried to ignore Coulson’s silhouette, bearing only two oxygen masks. He hadn’t asked for hers and neither had May. That means they had three masks between them. Which meant one of FitzSimmons didn’t need one.

Praying that she’d seen wrong, or concluded wrongly from it, Skye bit her lip and blinked the tears from her eyes. She could feel the pain in her lungs, in her ankles, in the wrist that she now held outstretched, trying to focus, trying to channel that pain.

_Let me be wrong._

–

_Let me be wrong._

The stale, filtered oxygen coming through the mask was a bitter comfort when he found them. He almost wanted to stop May, but he knew she’d see soon enough. He heard her reaction before he saw it: a quiet, choked sound, like a sigh and a whimper at once. If he hadn’t been so choked up, he probably would have made a similar one. There were no words for this.

They looked so small, huddled together like that. Simmons was all but on top of Fitz, and he had his arms wrapped around her so that their hands could lock together. He’d rested his chin against the top of her head. There were still visible tear tracks down both their ashen faces, and neither set of shoulders so much as twitched for breath.

“I told him to stay,” Coulson finally gasped.

The building groaned. May shoved Coulson forward as part of the roof groaned and fell. They dove for Fitzsimmons, protected by their proximity to the wall. Sparks swirled around them – but then slowed, as if the air had turned into gelatine. Coulson and May straightened again, slowly, watching the sparks as they turned from bright orange to black.

“Skye,” May breathed. At once the magic was lost, thinking of how much effort this was probably taking, and not knowing how much work Skye was doing or how long she could keep it up.

“Let’s get out them of here.”

Coulson sighed and looked at Fitzsimmons, together, one last time.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and disentangled their fingers as gently as possible.

May scooped Jemma’s curled form into her arms. She could hardly see from the tears any more, but Simmons’ soft expression, the way her head lolled back too easily, she felt rather than saw. She’d seen it before.

Coulson put one arm behind Fitz’ back, the other under his knees, and lifted him like a sleeping child from the car after a long night. No longer able to feel his lungs, only the weight on his legs, he tried not to look, not to feel his aching arms. He tried to think only about the exit. If he stopped, his knees might buckle, he might never move.

Never again, he’d sworn.

He moved faster toward the hole they’d come through, no longer bothering to check that May was on his heels. Of course she was. He just had to get out – back to somewhere green – somewhere he could breathe – somewhere he could lay these two down and apologise until his voice was hoarse for ever having let them go through with this.

What he got instead, was the horror on Skye’s face, and the screech of the burning building folding in on itself behind him.


End file.
